Draft board office

The Draft Board Office in Salinas was a small, functional room where Adam Trask served as a member of the local draft board during World War I. Appointed after Mr. Kelly's death, Adam was the logical choice: he had a clear service record and an honorable discharge from his own time in the cavalry. The office was furnished with a desk, a set of rules, and a window with slatted blinds through which the late afternoon sun cast harsh parallel lines of shadow. Here, Adam worked hard and honestly, but the task weighed on him with a sorrow he could not shake. He could not get over the feeling that the young men he passed to the army were under sentence of death. Because he knew he was weak, he grew more stern and painstaking, much less likely to accept an excuse or a borderline disability. He took the lists home with him, called on parents, and did far more work than was expected of him, feeling like a hanging judge who hates the gallows.

The Burden of Judgment

Adam's colleague on the board, Henry Stanton, was a man who liked fun and needed it. A sour-pussed associate could make him sick. He urged Adam to relax, telling him he was trying to carry the weight of the whole war. "You got put in here with a set of rules. Just follow the rules and relax," Henry advised. But Adam could not. He confessed that when there was a choice, when it came down to his own judgment of the merits, that was when it got him. He had passed Judge Kendal's boy, and the boy was killed in training. Henry, inspecting him shrewdly, realized that Adam was thinking about his own sons. He noted that it was a long time before Adam's boys would be called up. Adam's finger traced a slat shadow on his desk as he admitted, "Yes." Henry then wondered aloud how he would feel if he had to pass on his own sons. Adam replied that he would resign, not because he could reject them, but because he could not. "A man couldn't let his own go free," he said. Henry agreed, though he avoided solemn matters, confusing them with sorrow.

The Weight of Responsibility

Walking home from the office one afternoon, Adam pondered his responsibility. He met Lee, who had bought a loaf of French bread, and they entered the house. In the kitchen, Adam asked Lee a question that had been troubling him: if they send a boy to the army and he is killed, are they responsible? Lee, preferring to have the whole thing at once, listened as Adam clarified: suppose there is a slight doubt that the boy should be in the army, and they send him, and he gets killed. Lee asked whether it was responsibility or blame that bothered him. Adam said he did not want blame. Lee observed that sometimes responsibility is worse, as it does not carry any pleasant egotism. Adam then recalled the long discussion with Samuel Hamilton and Lee about a word, the word "timshel." Lee confirmed that the word carried a man's greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it. Adam remembered that Samuel Hamilton had felt good about it, that it set him free, giving him the right to be a man, separate from every other man. Adam called that lonely, and Lee replied, "All great and precious things are lonely." Adam asked for the word again, and Lee said, "Timshel—thou mayest."

The Final Toll

The draft board office was also the place where the news of Aron's enlistment reached Adam. After Kate's suicide and the revelation of her will, Sheriff Quinn came to the Trask house. Adam, already dazed, had gone to the post office and fainted. When he returned, he had a yellow government postcard in his hand, which he could not read because the letters jumped around. Lee read it aloud: "Dear Father, I'm in the army. I told them I was eighteen. I'll be all right. Don't worry about me. Aron." Adam said he thought he had read it but guessed he hadn't. He rubbed his hand, which was numb. This news, coming on top of everything else, contributed to the stroke that left him paralyzed. The draft board office, where he had struggled with the morality of sending other men's sons to war, was the place from which he had to face the reality of his own son's departure, a final, crushing weight that broke him.